On the leap day of February, IP15.9/14.15 has been released. Set aside a number of fixes, the long-awaited DISA (Desktop Integration Siebel Agent) framework has been released! And Outlook Drag-n-drop becomes reality, again.
Desktop Integration Siebel Agent
DISA has been previously discussed by Alex and myself in the recent past. The DISA framework will support with IP15.9/14.15 the below two features:
- Inline file attachment editing
- CTI Hoteling
But essentially, DISA will be a framework to support further future features, as well as allow custom-built desktop integrations. At some point.When at some point will be, is unknown at the time of writing.
Note: in the past it was communicated that the Siebel Outlook Drag-n-Drop feature (SODD) would also leverage the DISA framework. But after many considerations, the SODD feature (also part of IP15.9/14.15) will use a separate Outlook Add-in.
Reading the DISA release notes seem to imply that Incremental Repository Merge is required to take benefit of DISA. That is factually false.
Detailed instruction can be found is this fresh-from-the-press MOS Document:Oracle Support Document 2107511.1 (Install and Deploy Desktop Integration Siebel Agent (DISA)). There are just a few manual configuration steps required as the DocId mentions. More importantly, DISA does require a local client-side installation. Can be ran and provisioned as silent installer. Something to take note of, it can be obvious hurdle. There is a current limitation that the DISA installer is only available in English, but that does not affect the functionality in a multi-lingual implementation however.
Special set-up activities are required for both Firefox and Edge. The installer supports silent installation, using a response file. And DISA supports the needed security features, such as server/port white-listing and security certificates to allow secure communications.
Microsoft Outlook to Siebel Drag-and-Drop (SODD)
The SODD feature will rely on a specific Outlook add-in. Now I hear you think, that will be a challenge to get across within IT. Anyways, if SODD is a looked-for feature, options are limited especially due to the NPAPI deprecation. Still on IE11? In that case you could craft your own Java-applet based solution (it has been done before).
Well, what are the the use cases supported for SODD?
- Drag one email from Outlook and drop it on Siebel, the attachment will be saved accordingly, context sensitive.
- Drag multiple emails at one time from Outlook and drop them to Siebel. The emails will be saved as multiple attachments, context sensitive.
- Drag email attachment(s) from Outlook and drop them to Siebel. The email attachments will be saved as (multiple) attachment(s), context sensitive.
All together IP15.9/14.15 is not just a patch set :-)
– Jeroen
